


Crane Your Neck

by etymologyplayground



Series: The Road [2]
Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Gen, Humor, Not Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Compliant, Siblings, again loki and the GM are definitely fucking but i don't consider it A Ship for this, fuck infinity war lol, not th.orki bye!, pre-bruce/thor/valkyrie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-26
Updated: 2018-06-26
Packaged: 2019-05-29 02:44:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,534
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15063290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/etymologyplayground/pseuds/etymologyplayground
Summary: "You don't need to do this," Thor murmurs to Loki as the others get settled. "She doesn't have any power here.""Yes, I do, and yes, she does," Loki mutters back. "Her power is called 'being really scary and a better fighter than me.'" Thor snorts. "If I don't appease her she'll kill me faster than you could blink.""Okay, you bloodsucking little twerp," Gamora says, "We're all here and the door is closed. Show us the Stone."--Ragnarok happened. Thanos never comes.





	Crane Your Neck

**Author's Note:**

> HELLO!!! IM BACK
> 
> this is a sequel to my fic "laughing and not being normal"! it will make more sense if you read that first! but if you are in a hurry and/or already read it and wd just like a recap, here's what u need to know:  
> \- valkyrie's name is sigfríðr  
> \- the grandmaster and topaz snuck onto the big asgardian ship  
> \- korg introduced them all to a card game called gridë, which is alien mao/dictator/"uno but horrible"

"Don't worry, brother. I have a feeling everything's going to turn out just fine," Thor says.

 

"Hmm," Loki says. He can be skeptical if he wants, Thor decides. He'll see. 

 

But then the stars in front of them begin to wink out, as something huge descends in front of their ship.

 

"What—" Thor begins, but stops short to throw up a hand as his remaining eye is blinded suddenly by… headlights? He squints at Loki, waiting for his vision to adjust before he looks back at the other ship. Loki looks back at him, shock and terror slacking his jaw. "Loki, do you know who that is?" Thor asks.

 

"I—I'm not certain," Loki admits, peering back at the strange ship. "I thought for a moment—but now…" 

 

"Well," Thor says, "I suppose we ought to go find out who it is."

 

"Quite," Loki says, looking ill. Thor claps a hand on his shoulder, just a little too roughly.

 

"Have heart, brother," he advises, already striding for the door. "There's only so much worse this situation could get, after all."

 

"You have no fucking idea," Loki hisses, but he slinks along after Thor anyway.

 

They make their way to the helm, where Heimdall is already waiting for them. He looks concerned, but not overly so, which Thor decides is a good sign. The head navigator stands from her seat at the conn and curtsies. "Your Majesty," she greets him, and then "Prince Loki."

 

"Commander Eira," they greet her in return. Thor nods to the ship before them. "So," he says. "Any news for us?"

 

"Our apologies, Your Majesty," Eira tells him. "Our scanners picked up nothing until just moments ago. That ship must have very advanced shielding technology. But now all the shields seem to be down; it's showing up just fine."

 

"Have they sent any sort of... message?" People on spaceships did that sort of thing, right? It's been a while since Thor really did any real space travel; the last time he spent any time on a ship he was a child, and he wasn't allowed on the helm because he and Loki were too distracting to the psipilots.

 

"Ah, no—we asked them to identify themselves, but so far they haven't—" Eira is interrupted by a beeping somewhere on the conn. "Oh, that's them. I'll project it." She turns to a microphone and says into it, "Greetings. You're speaking to Commander Eira of the  _ Ad Aspera _ , representing Thor King of Asgard and Ruler of the Nine Realms. Please state your name, origin, destination, and business."

 

(Re-naming their stolen ship the  _ Ad Aspera  _ had been Bruce's idea. Thor got the impression that the name was some sort of Earth joke, but he wasn't certain he understood it. In any case, it had a certain ring to it.)

 

A projection flickers to life in the front of the conn. It's some sort of scruffy humanoid wearing a strange metal mask with big red eyes. "Uh, yeah, hi. Name's Star-Lord, you may have heard of me." (Thor hasn't.) "I'm captain of the  _ Quadrant  _ here. Our business is none of yours. Uh, y'all wanna explain what the hell you just did to my ship? I'm assuming it was you."

 

Thor frowns, looking to Eira for confirmation. She shakes her head slightly, concern crinkling her brow, so he says, "We did nothing to your ship. Are you in need in assistance?"

 

"Um, no, we're not, thanks, but if you didn't do anything to us, why the hell are our coordinates suddenly totally wrong? This baby's telling us we're like, light years away from where we were ten minutes ago. Now I know the  _ Quadrant's  _ souped the hell up, but even we can't go that fast. Did you, what, scramble us?"

 

Eira shakes her head. "No, we were unaware of your presence in this system until just moments ago. Is it possible your computers are wrong? The magnetic field around Epsilon Cygni Aa has a tendency to confuse older machines."

 

"Epsilon Cygni? We're by Beta Persei," Star-Lord says. Thor doesn't really know where that is. "Maybe it's your 'machines' that are 'confused.'" He makes air quotes and everything.

 

Eira looks to Heimdall, who shrugs. "Our coordinates are accurate," he tells her. To Star-Lord, he says, "By our perception, your ship seems to have appeared in our proximity without having approached. Are you certain you do not require assistance?"

 

"Um, hang on a sec." Star-Lord visibly mutes his mic and turns to consult with entities offscreen. If Thor is reading him correctly, he doesn't want to accept any help, but his interlocutor is arguing him down. The silent argument gets more and more heated, Star-Lord's gestures becoming wider and more expressive, until he is yanked offscreen by a pair of hands and a small furry biped flings itself into the captain's chair.

 

"This is a mutiny," the newcomer announces cheerfully. "My name's Rocket, you've  _ definitely  _ heard of me." (Thor hasn't.) "We would  _ love  _ to accept your assistance. Where can a guy come to dock on that bad boy?"

 

Eira gives Rocket instructions. The  _ Quadrant  _ is a pretty small ship, dwarfed by the  _ Ad Aspera,  _ and it turns out there's only a handful of crew members aboard. By the time they board the  _ Ad Aspera,  _ Star-Lord seems to have regained command of his ship, although he's ditched the mask. He shakes hands with Eira, then with Thor, giving him a clearly critical once-over. Thor tries to ignore it as he greets the other newcomers: the small mammal from earlier; a Groot; a lethal-looking green woman; a muscular grey man; and a young woman with antennae who gently refuses to shake any hands. Bruce and Sigfríðr arrived at some point—probably someone called them, or they saw the ship out the window—and they greet the strangers as well, as they reluctantly hand over their weapons for safe keeping. Thor tries to mingle without looking like he's obviously eavesdropping, which of course he is.

 

"Nice sword," Sigfríðr is saying to the green woman. "Fancy piece of work, that, yeah?"

 

"Thank you," the green woman says, "your people better not lose it. Its name is Godslayer and it's worth more than this entire ship."

 

"Godslayer?" Sigfríðr repeats. Come to think of it, that's ringing a bell to Thor, too. A very distant one. "Is it named after the sword that one assassin carries? What's her name… Galaria?"

 

"Gamora," the green woman corrects her.

 

"Right, right. That's a great namesake. I used to hang around a bit of an intergalactic social hub, I heard a lot about her. Last I heard she'd turned on the Mad Titan. Pretty insane, but good for her, eh?"

 

"Good for her," the green woman agrees viciously.

 

"I'm sorry, I didn't catch your name. I'm Sigfríðr." She extends a hand, and the woman takes it.

 

"I'm Gamora," she says with a little smile.

 

Sigfríðr, to her credit, doesn't freak out. Her eyes widen just a little, but then she grins wide and sincere. "I used to be a Valkyrie," she offers. "Let's be friends."

 

Gee, and Thor had had to work so hard.

 

Eira and Star-Lord coordinate the boarding of several experienced Asgardian engineers—plus Bruce, who isn't an engineer but he wants to see the other ship and it's not like the  _ Quadrant  _ crew is gonna know any better—onto the  _ Quadrant  _ to investigate the issue. Rocket, begrudgingly stripped of all weapons and evidently worse without supervision, saunters over to Thor, tugging his companion Groot along by a hand. "Hey, big guy," Rocket says, "Did I hear you're a, what, a king and, uh, fuckin protector of… stuff?"   
  


Thor reaches down to shake the proffered paw. "I am a king and fuckin protector of stuff," he agrees. "You heard correctly."

 

"Sweet," Rocket says. "I'm a, you know a, a Commodore. Commodore Rocket. And this is my um, this is Ambassador Groot. We outrank Star-Lord by, like,  _ miles. _ "

 

"Ah," Thor says, "I see, Commodore Rocket. Ambassador Groot, how do you do?"

 

The little Groot shrugs. He has some sort of gadget that he's playing with, glowing and unfamiliar. "I am Groot," he says absently:  _ I'm bored and your ugly ship sucks and you took Rocket's cool gun. _

 

"Unfortunately, I agree with your assessment of the ship. It has what we need, but it certainly would not have been my first choice. So grim," Thor says with a shudder.

 

"What, you speak Groot?" Rocket asks, taken aback.

 

"I took it as an elective," Thor explains. Rocket squints at him and moves his expressive little ears, like he's not sure if Thor is joking or not. 

 

"O-kayyy," Rocket drawls. "Anyway, Ambassador Groot and I were wondering if you'd—"

 

"Oh, no, you are not saying your idiot words to this man," interrupts the big grey guy, who has wandered over to place one enormous hand on Rocket's head. Turning to Thor, he says, "Whatever words he has said to you are almost certainly mistruths. But he will be saying only truths as long as he is talking to you from now on."

 

"Oh, yeah, and how are you gonna enforce that, huh? Just fuckin interrupt me about it?" Rocket snarls, squirming out of the man's grasp.

 

"Yes," the man says, gripping Rocket's little head more firmly. His Groot friend takes the moment to wander away.

 

"Hrghgmgm."

 

The man turns to Thor. "I am called Drax the Destroyer," he says. "I am a mighty warrior and I respect you on the basis of your muscles, and noble stature."

 

"Uh, thanks," Thor says. "That's… great. I… respect your muscles, as well."

 

That seems to be the right thing to say. Drax brightens and releases Rocket, who scuttles away rubbing his ears resentfully. "Thank you," Drax says, "I trained for many years and fought many battles with these muscles." He flexes in emphasis.

 

"That's great," Thor says. "Really—really impressive." He thinks Korg might get along with Drax; if the  _ Quadrant  _ sticks around for a while, he'll have to introduce them. Drax launches into a description of his workout routine using exercise words Thor doesn't know (double reacharound??), and Thor's attention wanders. Sigfríðr and Gamora are still deep in conversation; the slight woman with the antennae is talking with Heimdall. To Thor's surprise, Loki is sitting crosslegged on the floor with the young Groot, the two of them looking at the little gadget the Groot had brought with him. Thor endeavors to listen in.

 

"—am Groot," the Groot is saying. Something about color coding?

 

"I see," Loki says, nodding seriously. "So if you move your avatar like this—" he reaches over and does something on the screen— "it connects the armies?"

 

The Groot nods. "I am Groot."  _ It's all about strategy and timing. The space cat army has 10 vertical speed but the space lizard army has 15 horizontal speed. _

 

"Fascinating," Loki says, sounding sincere. "I have a—well, I don't know if I would say 'friend,' but—there's a man on this ship who I think would love this game of yours."

 

It's strange to see him interacting successfully with a child; to Thor's recollection, the last time he had seen Loki around kids was when they themselves were also children. He hadn't been good at making friends, or generally talking to other kids at all. At the time, Thor had thought that was just how Loki was; in retrospect, it's clear that Loki had, in fact, been a deeply awkward child, alienated and alienating, who didn't really like or understand other children. But he seems to be doing okay interacting with the surly young Groot. Maybe the Groot senses a kindred immaturity, Thor thinks to himself, and then he feels bad about it, and then he remembers all the bullshit he's had to put up with from Loki and he doesn't feel bad about it anymore.

 

Drax is in the middle of explaining something about his quads (where are your quads?) when Eira approaches Thor and taps him on the shoulder. "Your Majesty?"

 

"Excuse me," he says to Drax, privately relieved. "Yes, Commander?"

 

"I think you should come look at this," she says quietly. 

 

\--

 

"As far as we can tell," the head engineer begins, "this ship was in fact near Beta Persei until just about half an hour ago. All of the instruments are reading correctly, and the data in their history banks is consistent with what we would expect to find if they were in the vicinity of that star." Star-Lord nods, exaggerating the motion like,  _ Yeah, duh.  _ "And then there's a sudden leap in coordinates, and the data accurately places them here, near Epsilon Cygni Aa. There's no gap in the system, no missing moments whatsoever—they were there, and now they are here."

 

"Maybe we went through a wormhole," Star-Lord suggests, rolling up on the balls of his feet cheerfully. "Just—zooop! Just went in there and came out here." He illustrates his point with a hand motion.

 

"That isn't how wormholes work," Thor tells him. "With the level of technology you have on this ship, you'd all have been turned to—to—"

 

"To atomic spaghetti," Bruce finishes. "Your whole ship would have been pulled apart like taffy."

 

"Well, Jesus, don't rain on my parade any," Star-Lord grouses. "It was just a suggestion. Anyway so the moral of the story is we, like, teleported." Bruce shoots Thor a questioning look, but Thor shakes his head. "What?" Star-Lord asks. "Are you gonna tell me science reasons why teleportation isn't real?"

 

"No, teleportation is real," Thor says. Star-Lord pumps his fist in enthusiasm. "My people used to have a great instrument that could send us across the Realms. But the Bifröst was destroyed along with our home, and I know of no other tool with such a power." This is a lie; the Tesseract could do this too. But the Tesseract was also destroyed on Asgard, and it would be too much of a pain in the ass to mention it and then explain it, so he doesn't bother. "There are several people I have known to have the ability, but only one still lives and he is not responsible." Heimdall would have told him if he'd had anything to do with it. Right?

 

"Hmm. So what you're saying is we know fuck all and have no leads," Star-Lord interprets.

 

"Eh, more or less," Thor agrees.

 

"Were you pursuing anything in particular around Beta Persei? Anything someone may have wanted to prevent you from finding?" Eira asks. "Or were you on your way elsewhere?"

 

Star-Lord shrugs, leaning against the pilot's seat. "We were just passin' through. We had a, uh, an eventful couple weeks a while ago so we weren't looking for anything new to take on for a while."

 

"I know the feeling," Thor says wryly.

 

"Well, we don't always get what we want," Bruce says. "Mister, uh, Captain Star-Lord, are you from Earth, by any chance?"

 

Star-Lord's face lights up. "You bet I am!! What, you too?" Bruce nods. "No way!! The rest of you cheesy motherfuckers aren't, though, right? You guys dress like a Renaissance faire fucked an astronaut."

 

Thor claps him heartily on the back. "I don't know what that means, but I'll thank you not to explain so long as you are enjoying the hospitality of my people," he says cheerfully. "But no, Banner here is the only Midgardian aboard."

 

"Uh, yeah," Bruce says. "Um, where were you from again?"

 

"Sweet little St Charles, Missouri. You been there?"

 

"No, no, I can't say I have…"

 

Thor slips away, grateful for Bruce and his honestly pretty impressive patience. Outside the  _ Quadrant,  _ the other newcomers are still milling around. More Asgardians have emerged from the living quarters to investigate the strange ship. Thor is quietly thrilled to see that Korg is among them and he is, in fact, talking to Drax. They seem to be getting along. A couple children are cautiously circling Loki and the little Groot, clearly intrigued by the alien and his little game but wary of getting too close to Loki and getting snapped at.

 

Thor decides that's enough of that. Loki's good now, he doesn't get to be Mean Scary Prince anymore. Plus getting harassed by little kids is, you know, character-building. It'll be good for him.

 

"Loki!" he booms. Loki's head whips up and his eyes narrow immediately. The kids hovering around him startle guiltily. "What's that—thingy you have? Can you explain to us?" He gestures to the children to come closer. The Groot child sneers but doesn't say anything.

 

"It's a battle simulator," Loki says through gritted teeth. "Between. The space cats. And the space lizards."

 

"Oohh," one of the kids says. "What, um, what do the space, what do they look like?"

 

Loki sighs and the Groot rolls his eyes, but they hand off the game thingy to the curious child so she can poke at it and look at the little avatars or whatever. Thor meets Loki's indignant gaze and gives him a little thumbs-up, like,  _ you're doing it! You're being good!  _ Loki snorts.

 

Then his eyes widen, and something explodes past Thor. When Thor's eye catches up, the green assassin woman—Gamora?—is straddling Loki in a  _ decidedly  _ unsexy way, a blade to his throat that she isn't supposed to have. 

 

_ "Loki,"  _ she hisses. "God, of  _ course  _ you're here, you snivelling little bastard. This is  _ your  _ fault, isn't it? Did you tell him? How long until he gets here?"   
  


"Gamora," he snarls back. "I didn't tell him anything, so kindly get the— _ hhhhhhheck  _ off."

 

(Even through his shock and apprehension on his brother's behalf, Thor gigglesnorts a little at Loki's weak attempt at child-friendly language.)

 

"Why the hell should I believe you? Loki Lie-smith. All you  _ do  _ is lie." Gamora shoves the blade a little closer. Loki glowers up at her. "Tell me where he is or I slit your throat."

 

"Excuse me for interrupting this, it looks like a very touching reunion," Thor says, hands out, palms up, "but I would love to know what exactly you're talking about. Also, put your knife down, you aren't supposed to have that."

 

"I'll put my knife down when he answers my goddamn question," Gamora growls.

 

"I  _ answered—"  _ Loki starts, but Thor interrupts him.

 

"Lady Gamora, you are a guest on my ship, and you have a weapon you concealed to my brother's throat without explanation. You will surrender your weapon and explain yourself civilly, or you'll have a bigger problem than I think you're ready to face."

 

There's a beat of stillness. Then Gamora withdraws, standing up and stepping away from Loki fluidly. She hands Thor her knife hilt-first as Loki unfolds himself gracefully from the floor and dusts himself off. "Thank you," Thor says. She grunts. "Now, how about the two of you explain how you know each other and what the hell is going on."

 

Gamora looks at Loki. "Did you tell him?" she asks. "Does he know?"

 

Loki squints back. "Now you're going to need to add some proper names to that question. Are you talking about Thor, or—?"

 

_ "Yes,  _ I'm talking about Thor now. Does he know?"

 

Loki hesitates. Thor looks at him. "Do I know what?"

 

Loki hesitates again.

 

"The Mad Titan," Gamora says, as if that means anything to Thor. "The Dark Lord.  _ Thanos.  _ A warlord hellbent on intergalactic genocide. And  _ you, _ Loki, you worked with him."

 

"So did you," Loki hisses.

 

"I was a  _ child!"  _ Gamora yells. If anyone hadn't been listening in before this, they sure are now. The Groot child has stood up and is herding the Asgardian kids a safe distance away. Sigfríðr sidles up next to Thor—the side with the eye—and sends him a sidelong glance that he can't read. "I had no choice! I betrayed him the first chance I got. What about you? Huh? I've seen what you can and can't do. If you'd betrayed him—if you'd told him no—you'd be a smear on the  _ Quadrant's  _ windshield."

 

"Hey," Loki says, and then, "I  _ did  _ betray him. I'm here now, aren't I? I'm not off gallivanting about, trying to conquer planets and whatnot."

 

Gamora gives him an obvious once-over. "Really. You betrayed him and lived?"

 

"He may not have realized yet," Loki admits.

 

"Oh, my God," Gamora says. "He must have gotten the Space Stone. He's going to come here and take us both out in one stroke."

 

Loki frowns. "He can't have gotten the Space Stone."

 

"Why not?" Gamora demands. "How could you possibly know that?"

 

Loki makes eye contact with Thor and says, wretched, "Because  _ I  _ have the Space Stone."

 

Thor says, "You're looking at me like I should know what that is," and Gamora says at the same time, "It  _ is  _ your fault we're here! You did something with the Stone!"

 

"The  _ Tesseract,  _ Thor, please keep up," Loki says to him, and  _ ohhh.  _ "I did  _ nothing  _ with the Stone, I haven't touched it, and even if I wanted to use it I wouldn't use it to bring  _ you  _ here, of all the fucking people."

 

Thor wonders, briefly, who Loki  _ would  _ bring. It's not like he really has any friends. Practically everyone he knows is on the ship, and he's tried to kill at least half of them personally. Probably more than that. It's funny for a second and then it's just kind of sad and frustrating.

 

Gamora crosses her arms. "Prove it," she says.

 

"What?" Loki says.

 

"Prove that you have the Stone. Why should I believe you? For all I know Thanos has it and you're just lying. Buying time until he arrives."

 

Loki frowns. "... Not here," he says, glancing meaningfully at the gathered eavesdroppers.

 

\--

 

Half an hour later, Thor, Loki, Bruce, Sigfríðr, and the crew of the  _ Quadrant  _ are crammed into Loki's shitty little room. Well, maybe it wouldn't seem shitty and little if it weren't packed with seven adults, one smallish mammal, one child, and one Loki. 

 

"You don't need to do this," Thor murmurs to Loki as the others get settled. "She doesn't have any power here."

 

"Yes, I do, and yes, she does," Loki mutters back. "Her power is called 'being really scary and a better fighter than me.'" Thor snorts. "If I don't appease her she'll kill me faster than you could blink."

 

"Okay, you bloodsucking little twerp," Gamora says, "We're all here and the door is closed. Show us the Stone."

 

Loki sneers at her, but he reaches into a pocket dimension and pulls out the stupid  _ fucking  _ Tesseract. It hovers bluely between his hands, his fingers not quite touching it. "Here it is," Loki says icily. "Is this enough proof or shall I make a demonstration?"

 

"Yeah," Gamora says. "You should. I know you, sorcerer. This could just be an illusion." 

 

Loki scowls. "I was being sarcastic. I don't want to use this thing without any sort of protection, I'm not a moron. I'm afraid you'll just have to take me at my word," he adds nastily.

 

"This sucks," Star-Lord says. "Wish we had that Collector guy to just test the damn thing."

 

"Too bad he blew up on Nowhere," Rocket snickers. "Sucker."

 

"Banner, didn't you look at it back then?" Thor asks, half out of desperation and half because he's bored of this now. "Back on Earth, the first time."

 

Banner looks up, surprised. "Um, not really," he says. "I looked at some weapons that'd been made from it. And I don't have any tools here."

 

"Could you make… something? A tool?"

 

Banner actually laughs in his face. "Uh, yeah, that's gonna be a no, Thor. My best bet would be a gamma ray imager, and… yeah, no. I think it's gonna be Occam's Razor here, guys. Either someone uses the Tesseract, or we just don't know for sure."

 

Gamora swears. Rocket flings a hand (paw?) into the air. "Oh! Oh! Me, I volunteer! I don't need no protections because I'm not a  _ fucking  _ weenie."

 

"Oh, absolutely not," Loki says, and he disappears the Tesseract. "You have all the answers I can give you," (lie) "so now you can all get the hell out of my room."

 

"What? No. This isn't over," Gamora protests. "Give me the Stone. Just for safekeeping. I don't trust you as far as Rocket can throw you."

 

"Oh, you  _ are _ your father's daughter," Loki says. "No."

 

Gamora slaps him.

 

"Hey," Thor says in warning. "None of that here."

 

"In my  _ room,"  _ Loki mutters, rubbing his cheek. "Get out."

 

"He is  _ not  _ my father," Gamora tells him, her voice shaking with anger. "I'd think you of all people might understand that, Loki  _ Odinson." _

 

"Get  _ out!" _ Loki roars, flinging a hand up filled with green sparks. An invisible force flings open the door, and a great wind shoves everyone out of the room. The newcomers are treated especially harshly, clanging together against the wall of the hallway opposite Loki's door, which slams behind them.

 

"Well. That went well," Thor says.

 

"I didn't think that went very well at all," Drax says.

 

"Can someone please explain to me what just happened?" Bruce asks. To Gamora, he says, "You guys know each other? Who, I'm sorry, who are you again?"

 

Sigfríðr claps him on the shoulder. "Let's take a walk," she suggests. "I'll explain on the way. Hey, anybody up for a card game?"

 

Star-Lord perks up. "A card game!"

 

Thor catches Sigfríðr's eye gratefully as she herds everyone away. He figures he ought to stick around and pat Loki's head or whatever as he nurses his indignance. And maybe give him a little shit about still having the Tesseract, that little weasel.

 

Thor waits a strategic two and a half minutes before knocking on Loki's door. "Hey, Loki," he says. "Knock-knock."

 

"Fuck off," Loki sighs, but he opens the door. "What could you  _ possibly  _ want from me, Thor?"

 

"Ah, just thought it was time for some more brotherly bonding," Thor tries.

 

Loki squints at him. "Is that so."

 

Thor thinks about the conversation they had the  _ last  _ time Thor induced brotherly bonding between them. Oh, right. "Sure," he says, strained. "You know, this time maybe with less discussion of your horrible sex life."

 

"Cheers," Loki says. He lets Thor in and sits down at his desk, where Thor sees papers with sketches on them in pencil. He leans over to look at them; it looks like they're mostly complicated knots, the kind you find in basket-weaving, or designs for tapestries.

 

"This is neat," he says. "Are they for anything in particular? You working on a project?"

 

"No," Loki sighs. "Not really. Just something to—fill the time, I suppose. It's like a puzzle."

 

"They look like they took a long time."

 

"I have a lot of time to fill just recently."

 

Thor lies back on Loki's bed with his feet on the floor. "What's with you?" he asks, frowning up at the ceiling.

 

"What's  _ that  _ supposed to mean?"

 

"You're being awfully… candid, lately," Thor says. "It's disorienting. I'm used to you being much more…"

 

"What, circuitous?" Loki offers when Thor fails to pick a word. "Devious? Subtle?"

 

"Full of shit," Thor decides. "You're usually more full of shit."

 

Loki snorts. "Thanks."

 

"Anytime. So what, have you taken a vow of honesty or something?" Thor nudges him with his foot. He has to sit back up to aim, since his depth perception is shot now. "Or is my little brother finally maturing?"   
  


Loki grimaces daintily. "Heavens, no," he quips. "No, never fear, Thor, I'm afraid I'll always be full of shit. I suppose recently I've been having… somewhat of a crisis of purpose." He pauses, thinking. "I'm not one for sacrifice. But I can't have all the things I want, so I have to choose what to give up. But choosing is hard."

 

"That wasn't opaque at all," Thor says. "I wish you luck, I think."

 

"Thanks," Loki says again, bland. "I think the whole thing can be summed up with: I'm fucking tired."

 

"Mm. Maybe when we get to Earth—Midgard—we can get you a therapist," Thor suggests, only half in jest. At Loki's quirked brow, he explains, "They're like doctors for your heart." Jane went to see a therapist regularly. She had thought he should go to one too; probably she was right.

 

"I thought those were called cardiologists," Loki says. Thor doesn't know that word. "I think my body is fine. It's the rest of me that's a problem."

 

"Your  _ metaphorical  _ heart, fool."

 

"Oh. I don't have one of those," Loki says lightly. Thor kicks his leg, but like, gently. "Tsst. Fine, whatever, I'll consider it."

 

"Good," Thor says, surprised. Loki grunts. They sit there in silence for a while; Loki picks up his pencil and starts doodling more knots, and Thor tries hard not to think about whatever horrible damage is being done to their guests by Sigfríðr and the Gridë deck. Star-Lord doesn't seem like a very good loser, and he also doesn't seem like the kind of person who's good at Gridë.

 

Thor has just succeeded in convincing himself that Banner's influence might be enough to prevent some sort of horrible interstellar feud from beginning when there's a knock at the door, a goofy shave-and-a-haircut rhythm.

 

"Oh, no," Loki sighs, but he calls, "Enter."

 

Thor has to stifle a groan when he realizes who it is. The Grandmaster swishes his way in, and Thor gets a glimpse of Topaz settling in to stand guard outside. The Grandmaster gives Thor a little wiggly-fingered wave.

 

"Oh, hi, Sparkles, or uh, King Sparkles, I guess, as it were," he says to Thor, and to Loki he just tilts his head in greeting. Loki rolls his eyes, but one corner of his mouth goes up a little. Heugh. "Am I interrupting anything? Any, uh, what, brotherly? Sibling? Et cetera bonding? What gender are we today?"

 

Loki shrugs. "Eh."

 

"Sibling bonding, then, am I intruding? I was just, you know, they're playing that game again but no one is drinking, it's much more fun when you're all, I mean we're all drinking. Also there was, hm. Anyway."

 

"You're intruding," Thor says, and Loki says over him, "The sibling bonding was just ending. What do you want?" and Thor says, "Wait, tell me how the game is going. Put me out of my misery."

 

"Oh, the game is going fine. Various people participating, or, ah, you know, spectating. That Gamora is the only one of our new guests who's any good at it, but, you know, that's to be expected with, uh, her whole... thing." He gestures vaguely. "It's really pretty interesting, you know, it's a great game to watch. I really think I'm getting the hang of it."

 

Thor snorts. Loki leans back in his desk chair. "So why are you here, if watching them play Gridë is so interesting?" he asks.

 

"I may have said some things about, hm, Peter Quill's parentage, and specifically his father, that were, uh, were unappreciated," the Grandmaster admits. He sits down gracefully, folding himself up into a tacky golden pretzel on the floor. "Our dear friend Sigfríðr was so kind as to gently escort me out."

 

Oh, good god. "Remind me who Peter Quill is?" Thor asks, pinching between his eyebrows. He doesn't remember anyone by that name.

 

"Oh, it's, you know the goofy—Star-Guy, was it? Star-Man. That guy." Another vague gesture. He glances at Thor. "You know you're very brave to be sitting on that bed."

 

Thor looks down at his lap and the bed. "What, is it broken or something? Stupid secondhand ship—or, oh, no, oh, you did something horrible here before we got it, didn't you? Did you murder someone here? God, you are the worst."

 

"No, no," the Grandmaster says, apparently very amused. "No murder."

 

"I'm going to kill you," Loki informs him. "Thor, ignore him, he's more full of shit than I am."

 

"You can't kill me," the Grandmaster says cheerfully. "In fact—in fact! You actually can't even, um, can't even  _ wound _ me."

 

Thor scowls down at him and asks, "See, you keep  _ saying _ that, but if no one can hurt you, why do you let Sigfríðr bully you around? Surely at the end of the day she can't do anything to you that's worse than whatever Loki could."

 

Loki leans over and pats Thor's knee condescendingly. "That's very kind of you to say."

 

"Oh, I let her bully me around because it's funny," the Grandmaster says. "I think we both enjoy it. And anyway it's much more interesting if I don't immediately get everything I want."

 

"You're creepy, you know that?" Thor says lightly, leaning forward. "You creep me out."

 

The Grandmaster shrugs. "That's fine with me," he says. "Creepy is, ah, better than boring. Don't you think, Loki?"

 

Loki narrows his eyes at him. "I withhold my judgment," he says, because he's a little jerkoff. "I ask you again, do you  _ need  _ something?"

 

"What, a guy isn't allowed to, to come hang out with a friend when he's been— _ unjustly  _ kicked out of common spaces? Aren't we friends?" The Grandmaster leans forward to Loki, his perfectly manicured hands on his knees, all big eyes and exaggerated frown. Loki cocks his head, considering.

 

"'Friends' is a strong word," he decides. After a beat of scrutiny, he adds, "Perhaps we would be better friends if we saw each other from this angle more often." The Grandmaster grins.

 

Thor catches up. "Oh, for the love of—Wow, would you look at the time! It's time for me to go, uhhh, talk about… Thanos. Catching… Thanos. Yes. Bye." 

 

He's off the bed (!) and halfway out the door when the Grandmaster says, "Oh, what? You don't need to worry about Thanos."

 

Thor hesitates at the threshold. Counts to three. Turns back inside, already wincing internally. "Please don't tell me you're sleeping with my brother  _ and  _ Thanos. I don't think I could take it."

 

Loki makes eye contact with him. Thor just  _ knows  _ he's thinking some sort of horrible "taking it" joke very hard in Thor's direction. He ignores it in favor of ᚠ) glaring at the Grandmaster and ᚢ) not killing his shithead little brother whom he's gone to  _ such lengths  _ not to kill.

 

"I'm not, eugh, sleeping with Thanos," the Grandmaster reassures him with a shudder. "I do have  _ standards,  _ you know."

 

"Do you? Do you??" Thor asks, because he's a bitch.

 

"Nah," the Grandmaster continues, "I just, you know, took care of him. He's boring and, and I don't like him. So he's not a problem anymore."

 

Thor looks at Loki. Loki looks at Thor. 

 

"Excuse me?" Thor says.

 

"What do you mean by 'not a problem,' exactly?" Loki says.

 

The Grandmaster shrugs and kind of waves a hand. "I mean he's not  _ dead,  _ he's just off in, you know, in another plane of existence. Just him by himself so he can be boring alone. And I took away that silly little—what was it, the, the Power Rock? Big purple? Very shiny."

 

"The Power Stone," Loki breathes. "So he got his hands on it after all."

 

"Not for long," the Grandmaster says gleefully. He makes a complicated sort of movement with his hand and produces out of nowhere a large purple gemstone that glows with an unnatural light. The air around it seems warped somehow, filled with energy. It hovers just above his hand, turning slowly in the air. The breath catches in Thor's chest.

 

"Put that away," he manages, and the Grandmaster complies easily enough, vanishing the Stone with a wink.

 

"You like me, right?" Loki asks, out of nowhere. His chin is in his hand, mouth obscured nervously by his index and middle finger, and his narrow gaze is focused on the Grandmaster.

 

"Sure," the Grandmaster says. "You're fun enough."

 

"Bring Thanos here."

  
  


\--

  
  


After Thor has spent a while yelling at Loki about vengeance and Loki has spent a while yelling at Thor about intergalactic responsibility and justice (which, okay, but that's  _ definitely not  _ where he's really coming from here), the Grandmaster gets bored and tries to leave, so Thor herds all three of them to the room they've been using as a conference room. It takes another half hour to gather everyone, but the last stragglers finally arrive and sit down. Thor looks around at those gathered: Loki and the Grandmaster, of course, and Topaz standing behind him, but also Heimdall, Banner, Sigfríðr, and once more the entire crew of the  _ Quadrant.  _ Apparently the card game had dissolved pretty soon after the Grandmaster had retreated.

 

"So," Thor says. "You'll recall our Thanos problem."

 

Gamora perks up. "You have news?"

 

"Yes," Thor says.

 

"How much time do we have until he arrives?" she demands. 

 

Thor looks at Loki. Loki looks at the Grandmaster. The Grandmaster raises his hand politely and then actually waits until Thor says, "Really? Yes, you can speak."

 

"Ah, all the time," he says. "Infinite—uh, sorry for the, hm, Stone joke, but, infinite time. He's not coming."

 

The table erupts in questions. The Grandmaster repeats what he had told Thor and Loki, and displays the Power Stone again. The  _ Quadrant  _ crew gasps at it. Rocket makes grabby hands.

 

"What the hell? I thought that was safe!" Star-Lord exclaims.

 

"If he got to it… what happened to Xandar?" Gamora says slowly.

 

"Oh, uh, Xandar is… well, I understand it's, ah, it's about half the planet it used to be," the Grandmaster says.

 

There are murmured curses. The young woman with the antennae cringes, her hand to her mouth in shock.

 

"It was you," Drax says abruptly.  _ "You _ moved our ship."

 

"Yes," the Grandmaster agrees. Rocket looks at Drax, impressed.

 

"Why?" Star-Lord demands.

 

"I thought it would be more interesting," the Grandmaster says with a shrug, and, well, he's not wrong. "That uh, purple moron had just caught up to the  _ Statesman— _ or, sorry, what are we calling her? The, uh,  _ Ad Aspera?  _ Cute. Anyway, I thought that would suck and be boring, so I just…" He snaps his fingers and does that weird little grin.

 

"Who are you?" Heimdall asks seriously after a moment. He had been silent up until now. He leans back in his chair, arms crossed over his chest.  _ "What _ are you? I've never been able to see your actions. That's not unheard of—" his gaze slides to Loki, then back to the Grandmaster— "but it is unusual. We owe you a great debt, I think. But I'd like to know just what we're dealing with, with you."

 

A grin pulls its way across the Grandmaster's face. "Well, I'm the Grandmaster," he says, as if that means anything. "At this point, I'm basically just, just, the  _ embodiment  _ of  _ loving games." _

 

"Be serious," Thor tells him tiredly.

 

"Me? Never," he says.

 

To Thor's surprise, Topaz nudges the Grandmaster. He looks up at her and sees her scowl. "What?" She raises her eyebrows. "What, for real? Jeez, all right. Fine." He turns back to the room at large. "You don't have a—a  _ word _ for my planet or my people. I'm the only one left, and I'm so—it's been so long that I'm afraid I've forgotten the word in my own language." 

 

"You're an Elder of the Universe," Gamora guesses, shock coloring her voice. "Like the Collector," she says to her shipmates.

 

"Sure, like him," the Grandmaster agrees, "but less sucky. Like the Collector if he had, you know, a bunch of those little Stones kickin' around."

 

Gamora inhales sharply. Thor kicks Loki discreetly under the table and raises his eyebrows. Loki makes a face like,  _ I didn't know either.  _ Thor makes a face like,  _ Well, not bad.  _ Loki kind of smirks.

 

"You have to bring him here," Gamora says, her expression intense. "You have to bring Thanos back into this plane."

 

"That's what  _ I  _ said," Loki says.

 

"Great. The first and only thing we'll ever agree on," Gamora tells him. "Grandmaster, Thanos has to die. Sooner or later he'll find some way out of that dimension, and then he'll come for us."

 

"Oh, he won't," the Grandmaster says, "but sure, I can bring him here."

 

"Maybe not  _ here- _ here," Thor says, imagining the sort of destruction that would undoubtedly occur to the ship and wincing. "Maybe we can find a nice uninhabited planet of some sort and you can kill him there."

 

"I support you, baby," Star-Lord tells Gamora. "Let's find you a planet to kill your shit ass fake dad on. We can start a club."

 

"Does everyone on this stupid ship have daddy issues?" Rocket wonders aloud. "I mean, Jesus."

 

"I had a great relationship with my dad," Sigfríðr volunteers. "I think all your dads just sucked."

 

"I did not know my father," the young woman with the antennae admits. After a moment she adds, "My mother ate him shortly after my conception."

 

"How gruesome," Loki says approvingly.

 

"Jesus," Banner mutters.  _ "Anyway,  _ Gamora, I think you're right about Thanos. Thor, I think you're right about finding a planet to do this on. Heimdall, you know stuff like this, right? Do you have any planet recommendations?"

 

Heimdall looks thoughtful. "The Epsilon Cygni system has a handful of planets. Several of them are uninhabited and would be appropriate venues, I think. If you tell the Commander now, we could be planetside in a matter of hours."

 

"Shit," Star-Lord says, impressed. "Let's—I mean, Jesus, let's fuckin do it, I guess. Babe, do you need to prepare anything? Do you want, I mean I know you don't  _ need  _ backup, but… you have it, if you want it."

 

Gamora opens her mouth to reply, but Loki interrupts. "He doesn't deserve a fair fight, Gamora."

 

She considers this. "He doesn't," she agrees slowly. "But I do."

 

Loki nods sharply, as if he understands. Thor is surprised; he wouldn't have guessed that Loki would really understand the desire to win a fight fairly. He certainly hasn't been all that bothered about things like honor in the past. Maybe he  _ is  _ growing up.

 

They iron out the last details, and then disband to organize themselves. Thor and Heimdall go to talk to Eira about making a pit stop at the closest planet, and she starts plotting the course. Thor tries very hard not to think about whatever it is Loki and the Grandmaster have disappeared to go do.

 

Sigfríðr appears at his shoulder as he's leaving the helm. "Hi," she says, falling into step beside him.

 

"Hi," he says.

 

"So, I didn't see this one coming," she admits. "I mean, I knew he was like, super powerful. But not…"

 

"Yeah," Thor agrees. "He doesn't exactly seem like someone who's been around for that long."

 

"Well, neither does your brother," she points out. "Evidently living a long time doesn't necessarily mean you learn how to act like an adult."

 

"I'm made to understand that he's my sibling today," Thor says. "But, ah, yeah, no. Those two… Eugh. I think they actually kind of  _ like  _ each other."

 

Sigfríðr shudders. "Gods, of course they do. Hey, are you going to give him any sort of shovel talk?"

 

"Shovel talk?"

 

"Yeah, like, 'hurt Loki and I'll hurt you worse,'" Sigfríðr explains.

 

"Hmm," Thor says. "I don't know. I have it on good authority that I couldn't hurt him at all."

 

"Fuck," she says. "You're right. … You could probably hurt his feelings," she suggests. "He's a bit of a weenie."

 

Thor laughs. "All right, there's that. 'If you hurt my sibling, I'll tell you  _ just  _ how tacky your shoes are.'"

 

"Right," Sigfríðr agrees, her voice rich with laughter. "If you need inspiration, I'd love to help."

 

Thor snickers. “I’m shocked. I wouldn’t have guessed you felt, uh,  _ any _ protectiveness over Loki, of all people.”

 

"Oh, I super don't," she says. "I'd just love an excuse to threaten the Grandmaster some more."

 

"He definitely deserves it," Thor says. Sigfríðr snorts in agreement. They walk in silence for a couple yards, and then Thor asks, "Hey, you don't think I was too harsh on Gamora back there, do you? When she had the knife. God knows I get the urge to kick Loki's ass, but…"

 

"Oh, yeah, no, she was out of line," Sigfríðr says. "I have no idea where she managed to hide that knife. You were right to shut that down. It was a little sexy."

 

Thor stumbles over nothing. "What?"

 

"It was a little sexy," Sigfríðr repeats with a grin and a shrug. Oh, okay, she's teasing him. "I think Bruce just about died."

 

"What?" Thor asks again. "Wait, you think I'm sexy?  _ Banner _ thinks I'm sexy?"

 

"We do have  _ eyes,  _ Thor, come on."

 

Thor squints at her with his good eye. "Don't be fucking rude," he says, and she cracks up, and Thor thinks to himself,  _ huh. _

  
  
  


\--

  
  


The next several hours go by quickly. They reach the planet; a landing party descends that consists of Gamora, the Grandmaster, and Star-Lord; the Grandmaster pulls an extremely disoriented Thanos out of whatever plane he'd been stashed in, and then teleports  _ (teleports!)  _ himself back onto the  _ Ad Aspera;  _ everyone onboard packs themselves to the portside window bay with binoculars and enchanted looking glasses as Gamora and Thanos shout inaudibly at each other and then beat the shit out of each other. Thor still doesn't have a  _ great  _ idea of who Thanos even  _ is;  _ all he knows is that he was somehow partially responsible for Loki's invasion of Earth that time, and he's sort of but not really Gamora's abusive evil dad? And he fucked up that one planet, maybe more? That part was never really cleared up for him. 

 

But between Gamora, Loki, and the others, Thor figures this is probably as close to real justice as he's ever been.

 

Watching Gamora and Thanos duke it out on the planet below, Thor is struck by their similar movements. For all that Gamora is smaller and more nimble than Thanos, there's a couple moves that they share: an unusual kick here; a certain feint there. They both fight dirty. Thanos must have trained her himself. But while Thanos is bigger and stronger, Gamora emerges more and more clearly as the more able fighter. She's just  _ smarter  _ than he is. 

 

At last she executes a particularly impressive flip over his shoulder and drives her sword—Godslayer, wasn't it?—into the back of his neck. Thanos stumbles, surprise showing on his face as he looks down to watch the blade emerge from his throat. Everyone gathered on board the ship gasps as one. The Grandmaster claps his hands in glee. Thor thinks sourly that this must feel like old times for him.

 

In Thor's enchanted glass, he can see Gamora lean forward and say something inaudible into Thanos's ear as he drops slowly into a kneeling position. He closes his eyes. She pulls her sword out slowly, bracing herself with a foot on his head. The sword pulls free, and Thanos's body falls face-first into the dust of the lifeless planet.

 

Star-Lord flies over from his vantage point and takes her by the elbow. Gamora's voice crackles on the comm as she says, "Take us up."

  
  


\--

  
  


With Thanos dead and the mystery of the  _ Quadrant's  _ space hop solved, there's not immediately any reason why the Guardians (which, wow, what a goofy team name—nowhere near as cool as the Revengers) should stay on the  _ Ad Aspera. _ But then they decide independently to head to Earth, and since the Asgardians are headed that way anyway, they agree to stay for a while. It helps, frankly, that the Guardians are all rich as shit and have an interstellar reputation that's a bit better than "refugees from a now-destroyed imperialist realm." 

 

The Grandmaster offers to teleport the whole ship right to Earth, but Thor thinks it's probably wiser to give the Midgardians at least a little warning. They settle, on Banner's suggestion and description, for the Grandmaster to magic into existence an Earth Internet connection and a laptop computer. Banner immediately uses it to call Tony Stark.

 

_ "Tony Stark speaking, who is this and how did you get my private number?" _

 

"Tony, it's me." A beat. "Uh, it's Bruce." Another beat. "... Banner."

 

"And Thor!" Thor says loudly, leaning over Banner's shoulder.

 

Stark is silent for another worrying second, and then he says,  _ "No shit, I've got your signal traced to somewhere in the direction of, what, Vega? Cygnus? Jesus Christ, Brucie." _

 

"Cygnus," Banner confirms. "I know this is gonna be a weird question, but—"

 

_ "Oh, I love weird questions—" _

 

"—What year is it?"

 

_ "Oh, wow. Uh, it's 2017, dude. Where the hell—I mean, obviously space, but what the hell's been up with you? You've been off-planet for two years. We all thought…" _

 

"Me too, buddy," Banner says. Thor pats his shoulder. Banner shoots him a melancholy smile.

 

_ "Hey, you got a webcam? Lemme see that face. Was that Thor? Are you guys pals now?" _

 

"Uh, yeah, let me—and yeah, we're pals—oh, my God, Tony, you wouldn't believe the shit that's happened—" Banner clicks around on the computer and types some things and then there's a little window open on the screen, and Thor can see Stark's face, slightly fisheyed by his camera.

 

_ "Sweet shit, it really is you,"  _ Stark says, blinking.  _ "Hey Thor, how's it poppin?" _

 

"I'm not sure how to answer that question," Thor says, "but things are… different."

 

_ "I like your new look, very sexy—wait, oh my God, is that an eyepatch? Thor, did you lose an eye? I have to tell Fury right fucking now." _

 

"Oh, jeez, Tony, no, come on—"

 

_ "Hey, yeah, Fury? You'll never guess who I'm Skyping with right now.  _ No,  _ you shouldn't be worried—" _

 

"He should maybe be a little worried," Thor admits.

 

_ "—Okay, Thor says you should be a little w—yes,  _ that  _ Thor, what other Thor would—NO you're not invited, it's a special slumber party call, you aren't—" _

 

The window with Stark's face splits into two windows, and Nick Fury joins the call.

 

_ "Thor. Doctor Banner,"  _ he greets them, over Stark's howls of indignant rage.  _ "I assume all is well, if you have the time to be video-calling the world's smartest infant over there." _

 

_ "You say the sweetest things, Director." _

 

"Um, yeah, things are good, mostly," Banner says. "Listen, though, we're actually calling for a reason."

 

_ "Yeah, all the more reason for you to shove off, Fury,"  _ Stark says.  _ "I called you to make fun of you, not include you on all our exciting secrets." _

 

Thor decides to take matters into his own hands. "Director Fury, Tony Stark, Banner and I are currently on a spaceship full of about two thousand homeless Asgardians and we're headed your way. As King of Asgard I would like to formally request that the realm of Midgard—that's you—harbor my people until we figure out what to do next."

 

That shuts them up. Just for a moment.  _ "I'll have to make some calls,"  _ Fury says, and hangs up.

 

_ "Jesus,"  _ Stark says.  _ "So, what, Odin's dead and Asgard is gone?" _

 

"More or less," Thor says.

 

_ "What else is new?" _

 

Thor looks at Bruce. Bruce looks at Thor. Thor says, "Well—"

**Author's Note:**

> THE END
> 
> i hope you enjoyed! the title comes from [lady lamb's "crane your neck"](https://genius.com/Lady-lamb-crane-your-neck-lyrics) which is a stellar song wink wink
> 
> notes/counterfactuals  
> • the name of the asgardian ship is indeed a joke - it's a reference to the phrase "ad astra per aspera" which is the motto of, among other entities, starfleet from star trek. it means "to the stars, by way of adversity." with the words switched around, though - "ad aspera [per astra]" - it means "to adversity, by way of the stars"  
> • epsilon cygni is a multiple star system. there's no particular evidence that there's any planets there but chances are pretty high that there's at least one  
> • idk anything about mantis's people but i just wanted to make a praying mantis joke  
> • sorry i dont like writing fight scenes lol  
> • the original outline for this had loki and groot hating each other but i decided that it was much funnier if they got along really well  
> • fuk infinity war


End file.
